During drilling and upon completion and production of an oil and/or gas wellbore, a workover and/or completion tubular string can be installed in the wellbore to allow for production of oil and/or gas from the well. Current trends involve the production of oil and/or gas from deeper wellbores with more hostile operating environments. Various downhole tools may be installed within the wellbore, rather than at the surface of the wellbore, to provide operational control in deep wells. These remote tools can be activated within a wellbore based on control line signals, hydraulic actuation mechanisms, and/or mechanical actuation mechanisms.
When a mechanically actuated mechanism is used to activate or deactivate a downhole tool, the mechanical force is typically supplied by a collet deployed within the wellbore on a tubular string. In some instances, collets are designed to provide a differential opening capability of the downhole tool, such as a valve. That is, the collet can open the valve by applying a lower mechanical force in one direction and close the valve by applying a higher mechanical force in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, such collet arrangements used to provide low load mechanical actuation in one direction can increase the potential for the collet to creep in the low load direction during operation of the downhole tool.